Pre-Camping Adventure

First a picture of GraceMatt and I had been planning a camping trip for quite a few months now. The first one as a family of three. We have a very nice tent for two, but we were wondering how it was going to work with a little one in the mix. I had no worries about it working...till I noticed that Grace did not stay where I put her in bed, she would move, scoot, and shove her way all around the crib. That means that she would probably move, scoot, and shove her way around the tent to places that we do not want her (next to the side of the tent, against our air mattress, etc) unless we keep her contained.

Plan A. So we thought, that is alright we can just take her playpen and all will be good. That was until we set up the tent and put her playpen inside of it and realized that we would have no place to sleep because the playpen took up almost all of the tent.

Plan B. We would put her in a clothes basket. Good idea, but she is too long for that.

Plan C. We would put her in a dresser drawer. Also good idea but we did not find a big enough one and the one that we found was the exact size of the playpen...see Plan A.

Plan D. We are out of plans....

Plan E. We finally decide to give up and go and buy a new tent. Or at least see what is out there. So as I put Grace to sleep Matt whips out his iPhone and begins to search for tents. He finds a beauty at the Gander Mt. store. It was bigger, and it had everything that we thought that we wanted in a tent. So I ask, when does the store close. Matt looks at the clock and replys "14 minutes ago).... :(

The next day, the day that we would go camping, the day that we needed the tent (that we did not have yet), we went shopping. We got to the store about 10 minutes after it opened. We made a bee-line for the tents and did not see what we had found on the website, but we found two close contenders. Close but not close enough since we were standing there debating the pros and cons of each and still not liking enough to really make a decision. Finally the salesman became free and we decided to ask him about the tent we saw on the website. He stated that if we did not see it on the floor that they did not have it. Then, he paused, and said...hold on....

He walked out of the tent area only to return about two minutes later. He asked Matt to come with him (we all followed). There were four of the tents that we wanted, packed, in the corner of the store, really a place that no one would have really looked. We did not see what the tent looked like inside, we did not get to try it out, but we got it...and we are not quite sure why, but we also got it for a very large discount.

So we now have a tent that fits us all (and more if needed). We get to the campsite and begin to set it up. Pull out the instructions, the first line says...

"Make sure to set up this tent before you go camping." OOPS!

Sleep and Doctor

First, here is my styling starlet while on our father's day adventure (more on that later)
Everything in this picture just works for a up and coming star...the sun glasses, the over the shoulder look...I have a feeling that she is going to be a handful when she grows into these looks.

Ok, first sleep. Grace until about three days ago had loved to use the triangle bumpers in her crib. They cradle her against her tummy and back and keep her on her side. Well now that she has become a rolling machine (which happened about over night, no seriously it did! One day Matt and I were trying to get her to roll from back to tummy and she could not quite do it, two days later she was rolling over tummy to back, back to tummy, and over and over to get to a toy) she rolls over the triangles. So that is the end of them.
I went to check on Grace during her nap and this is what I found. She had rolled out of her triangles, onto her tummy (she is officially a tummy sleeper), and she had a leg through her crib rails. I went up about fifteen minutes later and found the other leg also through one of the crib rails! How uncomfortable, but I guess she can do what she wants as long as she is getting sleep.

Today was her six month doctor's well baby visit. She is 15 pounds (but she feels a lot heavier) which puts her in the 30th percentile of her age. She is 26 inches long which puts her in the 60th percentile of her age. And she is fine and happy in every other way too. I just have to look at the 30th and the 60th percentile and remember that it was not too long ago that she was barely in the 10th percentile of either. My girl is growing!

She had a good report at the doctor's office, we go back in three months for another well baby. And (though we have been doing this for the past few weeks) we got the go-ahead to start feeding her table food (ground up of course)! So at this moment, all is well. She is sleeping now, I wonder how the day will go when the shots kick in....

Funny Girl

At 4:00 am (yes, that is AM that I wrote) I was awoken by a noise. It was not a scary noise, or a sad noise...no, it was a very happy noise.

Grace (who should have been asleep) was squealing with delight and babbling to herself. I lay in bed listening to her for about 15 minutes. I figured if she was happy I could stay where I was for a bit longer.

Then came the other noise that made me get up to get her.

She would be happily babbling then a horrible, metal on metal SQUEAK would interrupt. Silence, babble, SQUEAK, babble, SQUEAK, babble, silence...you get the idea.

Grace had scooted herself to the edge of the crib, taken hold of the bars, and were turning them. When I went to get her, I saw that she had her eyes fixed on an object in the middle of the room...her pacifier. It was almost as if she was saying "come back, I miss you. If only I could get rid of these bars. I want you back...."

She went back to sleep (with my help). However, two hours later I awake to hear over the monitor....

BABBLE, BABBLE, SQUEAK, BABBLE, BABBLE....
At least she wakes up happy!

New Stuff In The Past Two Weeks

First, here is a picture of Grace today...So much has been happening in the past two weeks. I might not remember it all, but here is what is going on in the Daniels' household...

1. Grace got two teeth! Two weeks ago on Thursday she got one tooth, and the next day the got the other. So now she has two very tiny, very sharp bottom teeth. Bottom middle.

2. Grace is starting to learn how to crawl. She moves, but she does not crawl. She knows that it involves her legs, her arms, and lifting her belly but she has not figured out she has to do all three at once. So she moves her legs, lifts her belly, lunges forward and then scoots her arms...repeat till she gets close to the toys that are her target.

3. Matt and I for the first time went out and bought baby wipes yesterday. Grace is a few days shy of 6 months old and we have not yet had to buy baby wipes...well that was till yesterday. I feel so blessed to have so many of our friends provide for us as they have for Grace!

4. Grace is now partaking of table food. I usually choose one meal to veer away from her baby food. But for that one meal I look at what was prepared for Matt and I, then I pull out the baby food grinder and load it up with what we are eating, grind it to a consistency for Grace, then she has her meal with us. So far she has had pancakes, noodles in a beef sauce (no meat) and "tuna" noodle casserole...I put tuna in quotation marks because I served her meal up before we put the tuna in.

5. We are almost done with the building project. The pergola has been in the works for many weeks, and now it is to a point where Matt can do it all by himself. But that is new and big in this house. I hope Matt will write a blog on that soon.

That is all I can think of at this moment, I am sure that there is so much more. But those will be left for yet another post.

Grace loves....

Carrots, and sweet potatoes, and ....well, anything orange. Well, she also really likes bananas, strawberries, and pumpkin!
She also loves....
Books!
Well, who can blame her? She has a librarian as a mother, so she is surrounded by them!

I used to be different...

but now I have the same haircut as Matt and Grace!

The Hike

First, here are a few pictures of Grace's first real experience with grass...

Seems like she likes it well enough :)

A week ago Saturday Matt and I decided to have an adventure. One that we hoped would be a first of many. We wanted to go hiking. We love to hike, but we have not done it with a little one yet. So we packed up a bag (with a lot more items than we used to need) and got the backpack carrier for Grace, and headed out.
We decided to hike Buzzard Rock. It is a hike about 2-3 miles from our house and it is a 1.9 mile hike up. It is a moderate hike, nothing too crazy. But it is still beautiful and also a bit of a challenge.
This is how I saw Grace most of the trip. Made me wonder what she thought of me, the carrier, the hike, Matt's sweaty neck....we will never know. However, she must have been pretty ok with it since she did not cry or fuss.
This leisurely posed picture was taken on the way up to the top. I know this because at the top...it started to rain. And it rained, and rained, and rained. So we all donned raincoats and got to the bottom of the mountain as fast as we could.
Also on the way up we saw this 4 foot long black snake. He just looked at us then turned around and went up the mountain away from us. It was really neat to watch him.

Once the hike was over, and I must say a success even with the rain, we decided to head to Applebee's for lunch. It was a great Saturday out.

I think that we will do more hikes in the future. Especially since we have this nice carrier!